Dr. Anthony Friscia writes:

“The attached pic shows my tattoo of Miacis gracilis, and Eocene carnivoran from NE Utah I used in both my master thesis and doctoral dissertation. I started studying the carnivorans (members of the mammalian order Carnivora) there after going to the field with my undergrad advisor right out of college. I didn’t know what I was going to do with my life, and he said, “Come play in the dirt for a month and see if you like paleontology” and I did – like paleontology that is.

Continue reading “Carnivore Skull” →

Allen writes:

“In our case, my wife and I got tattoos as our wedding rings. I can still hear the guffaw of one of my wife’s good friends at the wedding when it was announced what we did. Our tattoos are ankle rings composed of a siphonophore, deep sea relatives of the Portuguese Man-o-War. We modeled it after one of Haeckel’s plates, but have since been told by the guy who knows more about siphonophores than anyone else alive that it “doesn’t exist”. That is one aspect for which it is not an apt symbol.”

Continue reading “Siphonophores” →

From an entomologist. More information here.

Click here to go to the full Science Tattoo Emporium. 

Originally published February 16, 2008. Copyright 2008 Carl Zimmer.

Jessica Pikul writes:

I am a Chemistry PhD student at University of Washington. My research is in bioinorganic chemistry, specifically modeling non-heme iron-sulfur metalloenzymes. I am also a Celiac (autoimmune disorder triggered by ingesting gluten). The tattoo on my leg is one of the segments of the gluten protein that I can not digest. The ball and stick molecule is of a Proline-Serine-Glutamine-Glutamine peptide that I can’t break down which then stimulates T-cells to start the fun chain reaction that ends in my small intestine villi being attacked by antibodies.

Continue reading “Celiac” →

This is how the Emporium was born. Last summer I was at a pool party where a friend, Bob Datta, was bobbing around in the water with his kids. Datta is a post-doc at Columbia, where he studies genes in Drosophila flies. I noticed that Bob had a tattoo of DNA on his shoulder. At first I thought it was a generic snippet of the molecule, but then Bob told me that it actually represents, in the genetic code, his wife’s initials: EEE. Geek love in its noblest form.

Continue reading “The Emporium is Now Open” →